Fool's Puzzle by Earlene Fowler (reading eggs books .TXT) 📕

used to say when he’d walk in the door, dusty and tired after a long day, and I’d hit him with a list of chores, “I’d be happy to do whatever you need doing, but I can only do one thing at a time.”

In the last nine months, his words came back to me whenever I thought I wouldn’t make it through another day, another new problem. One thing at a time. And the one thing I needed to do at that particular moment was go see a man about some birds.

2

IT TOOK ME twenty minutes to get a space in the crowded municipal parking lot on Lopez Street. San Celina’s downtown merchants had started their tussle for holiday dollars the week before with implausible window displays of a Willie Nelson Santa bulldogging Rudolph, lavender Christmas trees with power tool ornaments, and pop art ski wear designed for bodies that could never possibly have experienced the joy of a McDonald’s sundae with double fudge.

In the last hour, the rain had stopped, but the infamous, jacket-piercing San Celina wind stung my cheeks as I stepped down from the truck. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my sheepskin coat. As I walked toward Blind Harry’s, uneasy feelings about the approaching holiday surrounded me like a mulish tule fog.

I’d traveled this route with Jack hundreds of times. The malted milk scent of baking waffle cones, the monkey chatter of skittish teenagers, the wrought-iron street lamps, draped with fake evergreen and twinkly lights, were like a favorite old movie. Only the distance felt different. The three long blocks to the bookstore seemed to stretch the length of my life.

“Where have you been?” Elvia asked. She stood tapping her foot at the top of the scuffed wooden stairs leading to the coffeehouse. “Professor Murphy’s talk starts in ten minutes.” She searched my face with black, vigilant eyes. “Oh, amiga, are you all right?”

“Nice hairdo.” I pretended not to hear her question as we walked down the stairs. There’s just no way to explain despair without sounding melodramatic. “Isn’t that a French twist? Looks very ... French.”

She touched her glossy hair self-consciously and tried not to appear flattered. Elvia’s great disappointment in life, to the irritation of her six brothers and bewilderment of her native Mexican parents, was to have been born an American rather than a European.

“Sit there.” She pointed to a round table in front of an antique wooden pulpit where a short, rabbit-nosed man in an olive-green corduroy jacket muttered to himself while shuffling through a stack of papers. “Did you look at my questions?”

“Yes,” I said. I had indeed looked at the questions. Just hadn’t read them. I pulled the cards out of my pocket and waved them at her.

“Don’t be so obvious.” She pushed me down in one of the oakwood ladderback chairs she’d purchased when the city built the new public library last year.

“You’re so bossy.”

“Look through his book,” she whispered. She shoved a heavy coffee table book in front of me. The cover featured a picture of the ugliest bird I’d ever seen. “Take it up to be signed after his talk.”

“Do I get to keep it?” Though in my estimation, a jumbo-sized book on the California condor was not adequate compensation for my trouble, it would make a fine Christmas gift for Dove, one she could complain about for months.

“Yes, yes.” She fluttered the air around her with slender fingers and hurried to the back of the room to supervise the buffet of finger sandwiches, pastries and horrible French roast coffee she always served at her literary events.

I tucked the book under my arm and moved to a side table. If forced into asking fabricated questions, I preferred not sitting front-and-center while doing it.

To my surprise, the birdman’s talk proved interesting and amusing. With his soft-spoken, slightly batty sense of humor, he seduced the audience of mostly senior citizens attending for the free food into sympathetic support for the almost extinct California condor. As he explained in elaborate, somewhat graphic detail how condors mated, I felt a sharp thwack on the back of my head.

“Hey, cut it out,” I said. “Those nails of yours ought to be registered as lethal weapons.”

“How condors mate was not one of the questions I gave you.” Elvia set a steaming white mug in front of me. Her Chanel red lips curved upward, softening her reprimand.

“He seems to be enjoying himself.” I held my face over the café au lait and inhaled the aroma before taking a sip. She offered a plate of tiny sandwiches. I popped one of the crustless triangles in my mouth, then grimaced. “What is this?”

“Watercress and parsley,” she said. “The professor’s a vegetarian.”

“I must be starving.” I grabbed another. “They’re awful.”

“What’s awful?” said a voice behind us.

“Hey, Marla,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m double-parked. We need a key.” She pushed a long strand of dark hair behind her ear and adjusted her red baseball cap.

“I guess it was too much to expect Eric to be there working. Shoot, the spare keys are in my desk.”

“I’ve got Eric with me, but he doesn’t have his keys.”

“If I ever figure out why Constance keeps him on, I’ll give myself a raise.” I pulled my key ring out of my purse and twisted the museum keys off. “I’ll need them to open up in the morning, so I’ll come by later. That is, unless you want to be up there bright and early.”

“Sorry, I’m an artist. I don’t do mornings.”

“I should be so lucky. How long are you staying tonight?”

“Three, maybe four hours.” She pocketed the keys and started up the stairs.

“Wait, I’ll go with you. It’ll be wasted breath, but I need to talk to Rita and Eric.” I grabbed another green-filled triangle and stood up. “You know, these taste a lot like how alfalfa smells.”

“Benni,” Elvia protested. “The professor’s still talking.”

“Two minutes,” I said. “He won’t even know I’m gone.” I